Many of today's handheld devices make use of wireless “connections” for telephony, digital data transfer, geographical positioning, and the like. Despite differences in frequency spectra, modulation methods, and spectral power densities, the wireless connectivity standards use synchronized data packets to transmit and receive data.
In general, all of these wireless-connectivity capabilities (e.g. WiFi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, etc.) are defined by industry-approved standards (e.g. IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16) which specify the parameters and limits to which devices having those connectivity capabilities must adhere.
At any point along the device-development continuum, it may be necessary to test and verify that a device is operating within its standards' specifications. Most such devices are transceivers, that is, they transmit and receive wireless RF signals. Specialized systems designed for testing such devices typically contain subsystems designed to receive and analyze device-transmitted signals, and to send signals that subscribe to industry-approved standards so as to determine whether a device is receiving and processing the wireless signals in accordance with its standard.
In some instances, a device-under-test (DUT) may be subjected to a predefined test sequence in order to speed up test execution. This may include a test sequence applied to or stored directly within the DUT. The configuration of the DUT may also include a means to execute the test sequence. Typically, the test sequences may be grouped into blocks. The blocks, which are successive TX (e.g., the DUT sending packets to the tester), RX (e.g., the tester sending packets to the DUT) or TX and RX (packets being sent both directions) measurements, may be subsequently executed as entities.
Generally, in sequence testing conventional electronic systems, an entire test sequence is run. This test sequence may or may not include the occurrence of one or more test block failures. When one or more test block failures occurs, there is no obvious way to perform a “retry” in conventional systems, unless direct access to the DUT is available However, in many modern devices creating such direct control is difficult and often time consuming. Thus, in the absence of direct control, the entire test sequent is typically re-run. This action increases the overall test time and decreases the test efficiency while raising costs.
Accordingly, a need exists for enabling a test system to determine when errors occur in a test sequence in a time efficient manner. In the absence of direct control, a further need exists to enabling the test system to automatically “retry” a failed block at a period close to the point of failure rather than having to re-run the entire test sequence at the conclusion of the test.